Compliance tool — Singapore
Music Licensing Cost & Coverage Calculator
Commercial music in Singapore carries five separate rights. COMPASS and MRSS licence some of them. Enter your venue’s zones below to see what the societies would charge — and which rights would still be missing.
Why two licences still leave a gap
Most Singapore businesses assume that once COMPASS and MRSS are in place, their background music is fully licensed. It isn’t. COMPASS covers the public performance of the composition — the melody and lyrics. MRSS covers the public performance and reproduction of the sound recording — the specific track as recorded. Between them, that’s three of five commercial music rights.
The other two — master and recording rights, and publishing rights for commercial use — aren’t administered by any collecting society in Singapore. No local body sells them, and no combination of COMPASS and MRSS licences includes them. A venue can hold both society licences in full, pay every invoice on time, and still be operating without the rights that would ordinarily be cleared through a direct licence with the rights holder.
This calculator uses COMPASS and MRSS’s own published tariffs to show what a venue’s current society costs actually are, area by area, and sets that beside what a single MUSICVYBE subscription costs for the same footprint — one licence, covering all five rights, with nothing left for the venue to source separately.
The reproduction right is triggered by copying a recording — to a player, a hard drive or a streaming cache. Playing a physical disc or tape directly makes no copy, so no reproduction licence is needed. Almost every commercial background music system today is digital.
Add one row for each area with its own speaker system. Societies assess most venues area by area, so a lobby, a restaurant and a gym are three separate assessments.
How this is calculated
Every figure comes from COMPASS’s and MRSS’s own published tariff schedules, applied exactly as the societies apply them — tiered per-seat rates for restaurants and bars, area-banded rates for retail and office space, per-room rates for hotel guest rooms, each with its published minimum charge. Selecting a physical media source (CD, cassette or vinyl) removes the reproduction figure, because no copy of the recording is made — an honest distinction, and one most venues won’t be able to use, since almost no commercial system still runs on physical media.
The result is a like-for-like comparison: what COMPASS and MRSS would charge for the areas entered, against what the equivalent MUSICVYBE subscription costs for the same number of zones — with the difference being MUSICVYBE’s five-rights coverage closing a gap the societies were never set up to close. Fairmont Singapore and Swissôtel The Stamford’s consolidation onto a single MUSICVYBE subscription across both towers — from the main lobbies to the gyms, spa, pool bar and convention centre — saved SGD 43,000+ a year in licensing costs alone.
Figures exclude GST and are indicative. Societies retain discretion over which tariff line applies to a given premises, and a written assessment from MUSICVYBE will confirm the exact figure for your venue before you make any decision.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need both a COMPASS and an MRSS licence?+
If you play any commercially released recording in a business premises in Singapore, yes — COMPASS licenses the composition and MRSS licenses the sound recording. They are separate rights, administered by separate bodies, and one does not substitute for the other.
If I already hold both licences, am I fully covered?+
No. COMPASS and MRSS between them cover public performance of the composition, public performance of the sound recording, and — where reproduction applies — reproduction of the sound recording. Master/recording rights and publishing rights for commercial use are not administered by either society and aren’t included in any COMPASS or MRSS licence.
Is a consumer streaming subscription like Spotify licensed for business use?+
No. Consumer streaming services are explicitly licensed for personal, non-commercial use only. Playing one in a business premises doesn’t satisfy any of the five commercial music rights, regardless of whether the venue separately holds COMPASS or MRSS licences.
Why does selecting a physical media source change the reproduction figure?+
The reproduction right is triggered when a copy of a recording is made — onto a player, a hard drive or a streaming cache. Playing a physical disc directly makes no copy, so no reproduction licence applies. It’s a genuine tariff distinction, though it applies to very few systems still in commercial use today.
How does MUSICVYBE cover all five rights in one subscription?+
MUSICVYBE holds direct licences from IP owners covering all five commercial music rights — including master/recording and publishing rights that no collecting society administers — in a single subscription, usable across any venue without separate society payments.
For the full business case on licensing coverage, see our guide to music licensing for businesses in Singapore.
Further reading: Music licensing · Sound recording copyright · Collective rights management